Hi All,
Imagine living in a city that was “Cycling Friendly” like Kigali is Plastic Free Friendly? Imagine the next generation of town planners transforming seldom used parts of our existing city into parks or cycle tracks encouraging our communities to have a healthier lifestyle? Imagine Harare being known as The Cycling Destination City in sub-Saharan Africa?
In many cities in the Netherlands there are more bicycle rack sites than parking areas – just about everyone in Holland either owns or has access to a Bike.
One passionate person in our community is Jenna Hutchings and she is doing her utmost to raise cycling awareness in Harare. She volunteers with like-minded citizens concerned about environment, art, road safety, skateboarding, disability, recreational cycling, commuter cycling, and progressive thinkers at the City of Harare. Together, they organized the #HarareBikeDay, the third year celebrated. The Social Cycle had six routes from different neighbourhoods of the city for residents to cycle about 15kms into the CBD to raise awareness on #SafeRoadsForAll. I joined the 40 or so people on bicycles that started at MiGym in Rolfe Valley. We all stuck closely together under the strict monitoring of a few that have spent many hours in the saddle taking some 90 minutes for the casual ride.
On arrival we were welcomed by several hundred other participants who had joined the trek using Bikes, Trikes, BMX, and Wheelchairs with one group being even being chaperoned by safety-conscious motorcyclists from the group Bikers Lives Matter.
The event gave many of us an opportunity to meet new faces and throw around a few ideas. There is such a wide verge of land alongside the Borrowdale Road that could very easily be transformed into a usable cycle track for an affordable price – a great opportunity for one of the many companies setting up shop near the racecourse: Cimas, Econet, Nedbank et al
We have such a great climate in Zimbabwe that we should be spending more time on bikes than in our cars. Surely it’s a subject that needs discussion and planning?
Ciao, Mike G.
